A Qatari’s take on U.S. culture
April 21, 2010 § Leave a comment
Every once in a while, you encounter a character in a work of fiction who feels like such a real person, such a friend, that once you finish the book, you miss having him around. Karim Issar, the protagonist of Teddy Wayne’s captivating debut novel, “Kapitoil,” is such a character. When we first meet Karim, a gifted computer programmer from Doha, Qatar, he is en route to New York City, flying in to help the financial services firm he works for, Schrub Equities, survive the Y2K bug. The year is 1999, and “Kapitoil” reminds us that pre-9/11 New York was not quite as innocent as we may remember it …
Amy Reiter 
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